For Balinese Hindus, Mount Agung is without doubt the most important peak in the world. The mountain is believed to be the throne of the island’s most ancient and revered divine ruler.

Interestingly, the deity’s origin story involves a violent eruption of the mountain.

The deity’s name is Hyang Putrajaya but the Balinese prefer to address him with his honorific title Ida Bhatara Lingsir Giri Tohlangkir, the Elder Deity of Mt. Agung. Tohlangkir is Mt. Agung’s name in the ancient Balinese lontar (palm leaf) manuscripts.

Babad Pasek, a semi-mythological text on the history and genealogy of Pasek Sanak Sapta Rsi, the largest clan in the island, narrates how the supreme deity Pasupati chopped a part off Mt. Sumeru in Java before flying it to Bali and placing it in the island’s northeast region in order to stabilize the then floating island. The event took place in Caka year 11 (AD 89)

According to the text, the new peak later erupted, first in AD 105 and later in AD 109. It is said that after the second eruption, Hyang Putrajaya and his sister Dewi Danu rose from the flaming caldera.

Pasupati later told Hyang Putrajaya to reside in Mt. Agung, Dewi Danu in Lake Batur, and her little brother Hyang Gnijaya in Mt. Lempuyang. Pasupati tasked them with being the divine rulers of the island.

Another ancient text, Usana Bali, gives a slightly different account. It tells a story about Pasupati carrying two parts of Mt. Sumeru to Bali. The first part became Mt. Agung and the second one Mt. Batur. After Kulputih, a sage whose hermitage was in Besakih on the slopes of Mt. Agung, beseeched Pasupati to bestow the island divine rulers, the deity sent his three children to the island and assigned Hyang Putrajaya as the elder deity.

“Basically, these three deities are the ‘indigenous’ deities of Bali, because their names are not known in any Indian Hindu texts and to this day, Hyang Putrajaya and Dewi Danu hold a very important position in both the spiritual and physical life of Balinese Hindus,” scholar Sugi Lanus said.

Hyang Putrajaya is responsible for maintaining the overall wellbeing of the island and its people while Dewi Danu provides the Balinese with flowing rivers, fertile rice fields and bountiful harvests.

Besakih, Kulputih’s hermitage was later expanded in the 13th century into a major temple by revered priest Danghyang Markandeya and is first and foremost a place of worship dedicated to Hyang Putrajaya.

Later on, influential kings of ancient Bali were immortalized in multi-tiered meru shrines in the temple compound and every clan in Bali built minor temples to house their ancestral spirits next to Besakih’s inner sanctum, a development that earned Besakih its status as the island’s mother temple.

“From a spiritual point of view, the temple is the island’s largest and most important congregation of ancestral spirits and great royals. And all of them gravitate around Mt. Agung, the seat of Hyang Putrajaya,”

It is in Besakih and Mt. Agung that Balinese Hindus organize their most important rituals, the once-in-a-decade Panca Bali Krama and the once-in-a-century Eka Dasa Rudra. Both are sacrificial rituals aimed at restoring the balance of the universe.

Mt. Agung’s last eruption in 1963 took place during an Eka Dasa Rudra, triggering speculation that the disaster might be caused by a flaw in the ritual. Another Eka Dasa Rudra was organized in 1979 in an apparent attempt to complete the previous one.

To this day, all Balinese Hindus, including those living outside Bali, will face east or northeast when performing their prayers in symbolic homage to Mt. Agung and Hyang Putrajaya.

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